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A Tom Wilhelmsen Fly-By

I don’t know what your viewing experience is like. I could never know exactly what your viewing experience is like, because even if you tried to explain it to me in words, your words wouldn’t quite capture all the little intricacies. That’s not a slight against you — it’s just about the difficulty of capturing emotion and psychology with ordinary language. But for me and my own viewing experience, I’m still not quite trusting Tom Wilhelmsen when he’s up on the mound. Wilhelmsen is back to closing again after losing his job for a little while — and he earned the demotion — and while he hasn’t recently blown up, I think the memory of his struggles is still too fresh. My experience is biased by my expectations of the experience, and that’s just a part of perception.

But I’ve found some relief in the numbers. Sometimes the numbers can be cold and stupid and discouraging. Like, say, the Mariners’ team UZR. But sometimes the numbers can make you realize something positive you might not have otherwise realized. First, here’s Tom Wilhelmsen over 12 appearances between mid-May and mid-June:

12 innings

9 unintentional walks

7 strikeouts

57% strikes

80% contact

Those are the numbers of a struggling pitcher, of a pitcher who shouldn’t keep pitching high-leverage ninth innings until he figures out whatever’s wrong with his mechanics. Pitchers just don’t reliably succeed below 60% strikes. Especially pitchers like Wilhelmsen who basically have two pitches, one of which he likes to throw for a ball on purpose. Poor control basically neutralizes Wilhelmsen’s curve, and then he’s just not much of a pitcher.

Now here’s Wilhelmsen over 12 appearances since:

12.1 innings

4 unintentional walks

11 strikeouts

66% strikes

66% contact

A year ago, when Wilhelmsen was good, he threw 66% strikes while allowing 77% contact. Lately he’s been throwing just as many strikes while generating even more swings and misses. It’s a very small sample — with relievers, they’re all small samples — but it was also a small sample when Wilhelmsen was having problems, and here we’re talking about a span of 200 pitches. Wilhelmsen’s been better about getting his strikes, so Wilhelmsen’s been better, just. Whatever he was struggling with, he seems to have figured out, if not completely, then mostly.

We could talk about Wilhelmsen’s reduced zone rate. We could talk about his fastball command or his curveball command or his developing changeup. But none of those are the actual problems — any issues Wilhelmsen has stem from delivery and maybe confidence, and the reality is that Wilhelmsen is never going to be known for his pinpoint location. Even last year, when he was rolling, he didn’t make a habit of just drilling his spots. The quality of his stuff gives him a margin of error, and when he’s around the zone enough, he can get by. It isn’t fair to expect Wilhelmsen to be a shutdown relief ace, because he’s probably just supposed to be good, and recently he’s been good. Good closers will allow runs and blow saves, but that much can’t be avoided. What’s important is seeing improvement.

Wilhelmsen seems to be coming out of things, and that’s good timing for him with Stephen Pryor on the road back to the bigs. At any point Wilhelmsen could again reverse course because relievers are annoying in that way, but this obstacle seems to have been overcome. And, anecdotally, I think Wilhelmsen gets a considerable benefit from pitching to Mike Zunino instead of any of the other framing clowns the Mariners have employed. Evidence suggests Zunino might be a good receiver; far more compelling evidence suggests the other guys have been bad receivers, and Wilhelmsen has lost a lot of would-be strikes especially around the bottom edge of the zone. A decent receiver should help him be only better still.

Maybe it’s odd to focus on a closer in a season in which the Mariners are still several games below .500. But it’s important for Wilhelmsen to be good the rest of the way, either so the Mariners can count on him in 2014, or so the Mariners can explore the trade market. It doesn’t help that Carter Capps is an ineffective mystery, and that Pryor is still in his rehab. We don’t know what those guys are going to be in a year, so it’d be super for Wilhelmsen to not be bad anymore. Really it’d be super for all of the Mariners to not be bad. I’m pleased to see that they’re in the process of trying it.

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Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..